Tag: 18th-century
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What Happens When a Scottish Earl Falls in Love With Germany
Some buildings serve a purpose. Kinnoull Tower is not one of them — and that is precisely the point. Perched on a rocky outcrop near the 222-metre summit of Kinnoull Hill, above the winding River Tay outside Perth, the tower is a folly.  It was never a fortress. Nobody defended it. Nobody lived in…
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Elm Houses: A Story of Two Bransdale Farms
Tucked into a remote part of Bransdale, Elm Houses has a history worth telling. What is today one tidy holiday cottage surrounded by idle farm buildings was once two entirely separate farms: High and Low Elm House. On the right stands High Elm House, a long 18th-century range. A lintel stone dated 1780 records its…
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Wallington Bridge
A photo from last weekend’s jaunt up Northumberland, we called in at Wallington Hall on the way home. This National Trust property is a sign that one can build a very good place if one is willing to import enough rum and sugar. This truth is not exactly comfortable for those who prefer their history…
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Kirby Bank — A Hill With a Past
Bluebells pour down the sun-baked flank of Kirby Bank above the plain of Cleveland. Gorse burns yellow across the slopes. Below, the white walls of the Pybus Scout Centre gleam in the spring light. Beyond the green patchwork of fields, Roseberry Topping rises on the far horizon under a sky without a single cloud. A…
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Rede Bridge: Carrying Nothing But a Grassy Track
Built in 1715, Rede Bridge crosses the River Rede in rural Northumberland with two confident stone arches and a smaller flood arch on the right bank. It is Grade II listed. It is, by any measure, too good a bridge for a field path. So why build it at all? The most persuasive answer involves…
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Burnsall Moor Chimney: Too Small to Be Famous, Too Stubborn to Disappear
High on the moor south of Burnsall, a chimney stands alone among the remains of what was probably a boiler house. Nobody seems entirely sure what it is. At least I have found no creditable source. Opinion is that it belonged to one of the many small collieries that scratched away on these Yorkshire moors…
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Boxer Peacock’s Cottage, Arkengarthdale
Another post from last Thursday’s jaunt from Arkengarthdale, when I walked straight past one of the curiosities in the dale. On the track up from Fremington, I spotted what looked like a broken bit of Victorian drainpipe stuck in the bank, overflowing with water. I gave it barely a glance and walked on. Fool. Back…
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Glaisdale and the Enigma of T. H.
Some two hundred yards up from the foot of the lane that strains its way up Caper Hill, a dry-stone wall is built around a large orthostat. Rough-hewn at the edges and smoothed across its face, it carries a message cut by hand in the late seventeenth century. Kneeling in the damp and wind, its…
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Crossing the Murk Esk and the Dream for a Canal
I have passed through Grosmont many times before, yet somehow missed this ford across the River Murk Esk. It sits quietly at the foot of Lease Rigg, one of a pair of crossings of the river that seem to defy both logic and geology. The cliff rising on the eastern side makes it clear why…
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1772: A Path, A Stone, A Hanging
The so-called “Miners’ Trod”, with Cold Moor rising beyond it, cuts a broad, unsightly scar along the hillside courtesy of the forestry workers. The path’s name comes from the nineteenth-century jet-miners, though it is unlikely they were its first users. That large boulder to the left bears the date “1772” and a scatter of initials,…